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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.483
EAN: 9780618784608
ISBN: 0618784608
Label: Houghton Mifflin
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: August 12, 2008
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Studio: Houghton Mifflin
Sales Rank: 2681
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
"Steve Baker puts his finger on perhaps the most important cultural trend today: the explosion of data about every aspect of our world and the rise of applied math gurus who know how to use it." --Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine (Wired Magazine )
An urgent look at how a global math elite is predicting and altering our behavior -- at work, at the mall, and in bed
Every day we produce loads of data about ourselves simply by living in the modern world: we click web pages, flip channels, drive
through automatic toll booths, shop with credit cards, and make cell phone calls. Now, in one of the greatest undertakings of the twenty-first century, a savvy group of mathematicians and computer scientists is
beginning to sift through this data to dissect us and map out our next steps. Their goal? To manipulate our behavior -- what we buy, how we vote -- without our even realizing it.
In this tour de force of original reporting and analysis, journalist Stephen Baker provides us with a fascinating guide to the world we're
all entering -- and to the people controlling that world. The Numerati have infiltrated every realm of human affairs, profiling us as workers,
shoppers, patients, voters, potential terrorists -- and lovers. The implications are vast. Our privacy evaporates. Our bosses can monitor and measure our every move (then reward or punish us). Politicians can find the swing voters among us, by plunking us all into new political groupings with names like "Hearth Keepers" and "Crossing Guards." It can sound scary. But the Numerati can also work on our behalf, diagnosing an illness before we're aware of the symptoms, or even helping
us find our soul mate. Surprising, enlightening, and deeply relevant,
The Numerati shows how a powerful new endeavor -- the mathematical modeling of humanity -- will transform every aspect of our lives.
STEPHEN BAKER has written for BusinessWeek for over twenty years, covering Mexico and Latin America, the Rust Belt, European technology, and a host of other topics, including blogs, math, and nanotechnology. But he's always considered himself a foreign correspondent. This, he says, was especially useful as he met the Numerati. "While I came from the world of words, they inhabited the symbolic realms of math and computer science. This was foreign to me. My reporting became an anthropological mission." Baker has written for many publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. He won an Overseas Press Club Award for his portrait of the rising Mexican auto industry. He is the coauthor of blogspotting.net, featured by the New York Times as one of fifty blogs to watch.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This book was not only boring, I also didn't learn anything at all. I really struggled to get through this book, and thought many times about just giving up. I wish I had just given up and stopped reading it after the first few pages. It is also written in such a pretentious style - whoever uses the work "confrere" these days? Do yourself a favor and buy something else.
Rating:  -
It may be that you have a "shopper's card" at your local grocery; you hand it to the teller as you check out, and the computer registers, besides what the total is and how the store's inventory will need to be restocked, just what the purchases were for you as a specific individual shopper. Maybe it will mail you some coupons on items it can tell you will be interested in, based on what you have already bought. Not too interesting, not too challenging for the computer, not too intrusive. But what ... Read More
Rating: -
The Numerati contains a wealth of very nice examples of the ways in which fast and ubiquitous computer chips along with improved software and data mining techniques will affect us (mostly for the good).
Rating:  -
Quantitative profiling of human behavior ranges from the beneficial (recommendation engines for books and movies) to the scary (employer and police monitoring), and everything in between. "Numerati" provides a journalistic introduction to this topic, that is easy to read and understand. I found it way too simplified, though:
1. The author treats this technology as a "black box" which makes it seem almost miraculous to the uninitiated reader. The first requirement in writing about any technology ... Read More
Rating: -
For anyone who works in digital marketing, internet advertising, online marketing, etc., (I fall into all of those categories and have since the mid-90's), this is a delicious read. Baker lets us peer into the minds and business models of what are essentially mathematical probability companies. It's a highly engrossing read, made more so for me personally since I know one of the data wizards referenced in the book. What I also like about the book is that it lets you draw your own conclusions on topics such ... Read More
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